Samsung SCH-220 Code – silver (MetroPCS) – Phone for businessmen and internet users.

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Great keyboard, lots of features like GPS, Bluetooth, etc.

Thumbs Down:

Older OS, the phone runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 instead of Windows Mobile 6.5.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology:
CDMA

Band:
CDMA 800/1900 (Dual Band)

Phone design:
Candy bar

Caller ID:
Yes

Other features:
Camera, Music player, Bluetooth, GPS.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Display 2.4 inch, 320×240 pixels resolution, full QWERTY keyboard, 2.0 mega pixel camera, Audio/Video formats – AAC, MP3, WAV, MPEG-4, WMA and WMV, POP3, IMAP connectivity, Bluetooth, GPS/A-GPS, 94 MB internal flash memory, microSD slot provided for external cards, 3.5 mm head phone jack.

Razzle Dazzle:

Samsung SCH-220 Code has the typical old school geeky look which smart phones with full QWERTY keyboard once flaunted. The phone won’t go down well with fashion enthusiasts but heavy users such as business men will like it because more care has been taken for ergonomics than looks. But they say first impression is the last impression and we leave it for you to decide what you want. However, the phone is really slim will not ask for much space in your pocket. If the phone has a bit less wide we would have said that the phone could fit in tightest of jeans. The exterior of the phone is all gray metallic chassis which looks pretty cool.

Inside Dope:

Samsung has gone back to the days where smart phones were intimidating with lots of keys and looked like some kind of a supercomputer. But the Samsung SCH-220 Code is aimed at business men and not your regular college student so functions and features have been kept in mind and looks have been given second preference. We don’t doubt Samsung’s mobiles as we know they are capable of making world class electronic products.

The Samsung SCH-220 Code has a non touch display and it is a little small as compared to what smart phone have these days. The 2.4 inch QVGA display has a resolution of 320×240 pixels. The images and the text of the phone is pretty good but it will be overwhelmed when you use it in bright sunlight. The screen won’t be able to stand bright sunlight. You can change the background images on the screen as well as the layouts, themes, etc. The display of the screen feels spacious even though it is small in size. There is big box on the home screen which shows you the time and date. Along with this there is a bar at the bottom which gives you short cut to most used applications like camera and music player, calendar, contacts, etc.

Below the display are the two soft buttons which go with the functions which are shown on the screen. Below these two are the home and the back buttons. In the centre is the navigation button which the OK button in the centre. There are call and call end buttons on the ends of the phone and we really liked the vertical placement of these button. They are quite big as compared to rest of the buttons and maybe they are made so because they will be used most on the Samsung SCH-220 Code.

Below these buttons is the full sized QWERTY keyboard which contributes to the geeky look of the Samsung SCH-220 Code. It is quite intimidating but really comfortable to use. The keys are sufficiently raised above the surface to give you a good typing experience. We have had a few smart phones which boasted of 3G and Wi-Fi features but the keyboard is so cramped that you can never use it for too long, your fingers will start howling and there will be lots of mishits. These problems are showing their ugly face in physical as well as virtual QWERTY keyboards.

But in the Samsung SCH-220 Code there were no such problems, you can type on these babies for hours and your fingers won’t complain much. The buttons which sum up as numeric keypad are shown in white where as rest of the keyboard is all black.

On the sides on the Samsung SCH-220 Code there is volume rocker and a short cut which you can program to bring up for the application that you use the most. It is like a smart button which wakes up an application. The phone has 3.5 mm phone jack for you to plug in your favorite set of head phones. While we were looking at the sides of the phone for ports and connections we were still admiring the slimness of the phone.

The Samsung SCH-220 Code comes bundled with adapter for charging the battery, USB cord, soft ware disc and reference manual.

The Samsung SCH-220 Code runs on Windows 6.1 something that we were disappointed at considering that the 6.5 version has lots of improved features. And if there is new technology available, why not use it? The new version of Windows mobile has revamped the layout of the home screen and the default browser – Internet Explorer Mobile browser has also been changed. The browser still has some issues but we were happy with the hard work that was put in by the manufacturer. You can download more applications for your phone from the Windows Marketplace.

The Samsung SCH-220 Code is bundled in with full Microsoft Office Mobile Suite so you can work on your office documents with Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications. Again with the generous keyboard you won’t be complaining much and you can type on for hours as long as you don’t run out of battery. Other useful applications include PDF viewer, voice recorder, RSS reader, notepad, stopwatch, calculator and measurement converter. Just like a computer, the phone has a Task Manager for you to end applications that you don’t need and you can also switch between programs. Ending applications that you don’t need will free up the occupied memory and the phone will run faster.

The Samsung SCH-220 Code has POP3 and IMAP connectivity for you to sync the phone to receive email from the clients like AOL and Gmail. Setting up the phone to receive emails was easy due to the wizard provided on the phone which helps you a lot along the process. The phone is very intuitive when it comes to POP3 connectivity, for Gmail the phone asked us userID and password and the phone synced it in a jiffy.

This is a Windows Mobile Phone the phone comes built in with Direct Push technology by Microsoft for delivery of mails and it also automatically synchronizes the Outlook calendar, contacts and tasks through the Exchange Server.  The phone has Windows Live Messenger built for chatting. There is also Bluetooth and GPS/A-GPS on the Samsung SCH-220 Code.

Other features of the Samsung SCH-220 Code which are worth mentioning are speed dialing, conference calling, three way calling, voice dialing and speaker phone. There is no limit to the number of entries that you can enter on the phone as long as there is enough memory and each entry can take multiple numbers, company information, e-mail ID, etc. You can assign a photo to a contact or to a group and you can also assign an individual ring tone to a contact.

The Samsung SCH-220 Code can read formats like AAC, MP3, WAV, MPEG-4, WMA and WMV. Quality was good but this phone is not for heavy multi media usage. We recommend the iPhone for best experience when it comes to multimedia. The video and sound qualities are still unmatched. For storing media the phone has a 94 MB of internal memory and you can always put in an extra microSD card. The card is located behind the battery door, but at least you won’t have to remove the battery to access the card.

Behind Samsung SCH-220 Code is a 2 mega pixel camera and there is a portrait mirror but no flash. Photo quality was good by the standards of 2 mega pixel camera but any 3.2 MP camera will eclipse these photos. The camera can record video and has options like effect, white balance settings and night mode.

We tested the Samsung SCH-220 Code for call quality and were happy with what the phone had to offer. Call quality wasn’t excellent but you can clearly hear what the other party is saying. A little distortion and background noise is natural if you are in a noisy environment. The quality dips in speaker phone calls, which is seen with lots of phones because speaker phone attracts more background noise. But we are not complaining we could hear what our friends were saying and they could hear us clearly too. We also paired up the phone with a Bluetooth device, pairing was easy and call quality was decent.

The Samsung SCH-220 Code is powered by 1440mAh lithium-ion battery and the talk time phone is 6 hours after which you will have to charge the battery of the phone and the stand by time is 12.5 days.

Nitty Gritty:

The Samsung SCH-220 Code is built for businessmen who need work when they are on the move and need to access the internet. The big and comfortable QWERTY keyboard is made for that purpose. But this phone is not for you if you are looking for great multi media experience. We will also sulk at the 2.0 MP camera, it could have at least been 3.2 mega pixel.

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